Best alternatives to Tolaria in 2026

Most note-taking apps lock your notes inside their own database or cloud account — if the company shuts down or you want to switch tools, getting your notes out cleanly is a hassle. Tolaria takes the opposite approach: every note is just a markdown file on your computer, organized however you like, with Git tracking every change automatically — so your notes are as portable and future-proof as any code project. Tolaria is an open-source (AGPL-3.0), cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux) knowledge management app built by Luca, creator of the 170,000-subscriber Refactoring newsletter, after outgrowing existing tools while managing 9,000+ of his own notes. It combines a block-based editor with slash commands and wikilinks, a fully integrated Git client for version control and sync, and local AI agent support (Claude Code, Gemini) that can read and act on your notes directly. With 9,900+ GitHub stars and 3,500+ commits, it markets itself as 'a second brain for the AI era' — zero cloud dependency, keyboard-first, and free forever with no account required.